WSU NFL Draft Streak About to End?

Happy Humpday Cougs, and happy NFL Draft-eve!  Tomorrow night, for the first time ever (?), the first round of the draft will go down in NYC, in PRIME TIME.  What an event the draft has morphed into the last 15-20 years, I mean really, no other sport can even touch it with their drafts, you know?  The NBA draft is OK, but it’s changed dramatically with all the early entries and Euro’s that you’ve never seen play before turning into lottery picks.  The NBA draft with Lebron, D-Wade, Carmelo, Bosh, Luke Ridnour….etc, was pretty fantastic, but otherwise it’s a lot of “who?” as the names are rattled off.  And the MLB draft, forget it.  Beyond the first couple of picks, and outside of some players you might recognize with local ties, it is just a black hole of disinterest as high school seniors have their names rattled off on the MLB Network.

But there isn’t anything else like the NFL.  They have now expanded it out to FOUR days of action, Thursday through Sunday.  I imagine by the end of the weekend, they’ll have Mel Kiper in a hospital bed, being fed from a tube, he’ll be so wiped.  But hey, whatever helps sells the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE! 

So, what does the NFL draft have anything to do with WSU?  Believe it or not, even in this decade, the Cougs have in fact been sending players to the league.  Now, it’s not a great history….in fact, WSU is now last in the Pac-10 in the last 10 years with players picked for the next level, just 17 overall and just six taken on the first day.  WSU hasn’t had a first rounder since Marcus Trufant went to the Seahawks in ’03, and that’s it for the 2K decade.  But the Cougs have now had a player picked in the draft for 15 straight years, a streak that continued with Brandon Gibson’s selection by the Eagles last year.  Will that streak continue this weekend, or, do the Cougs get shut out in this year’s draft?  Read on for some updated mock drafts, plus other links…..

Clearly the best chance of a draft choice is none other than Kenny Alfred.  The senior center was a pillar in the storm of recent struggles by the football program, shining bright in the middle among the chaos around him.  He started 44 games in his WSU career, including the last 29 in a row.  Cougfan had a really good update on what Alfred’s been doing as he preps for the draft.  I think we can all agree that Alfred is an easy guy to root for, and we will all hope for the best this weekend!

In terms of pure NFL “draft-ability”, he graded out OK in his senior day workout in Pullman, per Gil Brandt at NFL.com:

Offensive lineman Kenny Alfred (6-2, 290) ran 5.06 and 5.08 in the 40, had a 31-inch vertical leap, 8-1 broad jump, 4.50 short shuttle, 7.80 three-cone drill and completed 21 bench press reps. – Gil Brandt, NFL.com

From the latest mock drafts, it’s looking like there is at least a CHANCE Alfred can keep the streak alive…..maybe.  So far, we have the following mock’s, with where Alfred could wind up:

StampedeBlue.com has Alfred going in the 7th round, 239th overall, to New Orleans.
IGN.com has Alfred going in the 7th round, 22nd overall, to Tennessee.

Unfortunately….that’s it.  SI.com, ESPN.com, NFLDraftScout.com, none of those mock drafts have Alfred getting picked.  More than likely they have him as an undrafted free agent.

And, the outlook is even less-than-glowing for Andy Mattingly.  I didn’t find one mock draft where his name was actually called.  NFLDraftScout.com has him rated as the 510th best available player, or the 44th best outside linebacker (wow), so, I think it’s safe to assume that he won’t hear his name called over the weekend. 

I know it, you know it – mock drafts can be somewhat worthless outside of the first couple of rounds, and especially when you start “mocking” those later rounds.  It can be a total crapshoot as to who goes where, and there are always surprises up and down the board.  But when you see the consensus of all the draft sites pegging a player as a 7th rounder/free agent, as we are seeing in Alfred’s case, well, you can draw your own conclusions.  It’s possible he’ll get picked, it really is.  But is it likely?  Probably not.

Moving on, no practice to recap from Tuesday, as it was cancelled.  They will now go next Monday at 6 AM again, early-bird style.  Kind of unusual to have a practice after the big spring game, but it is what it is at this point.  Players are beat up, sick, whatever, so a rest day sounded appropriate.  Anyway, Grippi has a big story on the offense, sort of a preview-type read, with a lot of quotes from Todd Sturdy.  This one is interesting:

In talking with Sturdy, he seemed to echo something co-defensive coordinator Chris Ball told me the day before. The staff seems to be trying to tailor the defensive and offensive philosophies to the talents of the players, not trying to shove the players into a one-size-fits-all scheme. “That’s any coach’s job to evaluate your personnel and evaluate where you’re at,” Sturdy said. “I think we’ve taken some big steps this spring, that’s pretty evident. Our kids feel it. My deal with our kids is ‘ya, it’s evident, but there has to be urgency here. We need to continue to take steps.”

Makes you wonder what we’ll see out of the offense this fall?  Will they continue to push the no-huddle, aggressive scheme, or will they reel it in and keep things simple?  Per Sturdy:

“I don’t think it’s conservative, I think it’s a smart approach to who we are and what we want to get accomplished,” he said. “We’re going to be extremely aggressive in everything we do. I don’t think there’s a conservative thing about what we’re doing offensively.”

Let’s hope that is the case, and the offense pushes things to the limit. 

All for now.  Enjoy your Humpday, and GO COUGS!